Where do I start on this one? Thai Nguyen from the seminary came for the very first time. Like his name, his Vietamese get up was no lie. Then he had this Australian accent that through me off; absolute awesomeness.
Well right after we met at the house with the Rowland family minus Janice, we took off to our first stop. Let me mention that we had 80+ hot dogs, a few sandwiches, gatorade, bananas, and some apples. We also had some toiletries, but we were severely limited. At the first visit there was another church present. This was the same hispanic church that has been meeting daily on Saturdays. They were singing, so we decided to move to the second stop first.
The second stop had a few people, but they were hungry. We managed to give away most of our hot dogs on this visit as well as sandwiches. Here I met Jimbo.
He's a stowaway from Arizona. He jumped off a train close to Hemphill and his face showed the injuries from the jump. He's a chronic alcoholic, 34, and no where to go. His father and mother abandoned him. He's left to fend for himself until he can hitch another ride to Chicago. He's trying to stay here for a few days, but the outlook is bleak. I was able to share the gospel with him, but with little effect. He desired to be nomadic and wishes not to be changed for religious purposes. But he's still young and my prayer is that he would mature and see the hope only Christ can bring.
I also met Betsy a little old lady who owned several dogs. She was suspended to her wheelchair. She shared that she was a devout Catholic, but has given much hope into finding a home. She's handicapped and lives under a tin roof with a friend, who's given her a bug infested home. If her hope is indeed in the living God, then her home in heaven with Christ will be grand.
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Thai Nguyen emailed me a brief testimony. Imagine this in your best Australian accent:
" As soon as we pulled up to our first stop I was able to meet with a gentlman named DC, we seemed to connect quite well and he opened up about some of his struggles, he had been in and out of penetentiary, struggling to get his life on the right track after serving in the navy. He has come from a family of church goers and preachers, knowing and believeing in the Lord but never living for him. I encouraged him that he has all the head knowledge and has the desire for all the rights things and that he really has to put his foot down and begin to take those steps. We exchanged phone numbers and I told him that I would be praying for him. I sent him a text message yesterday but got no response, praying about calling him in the next few days.
Also got to talk with a Vietnamese man who had obvious physical struggles and even deeper spiritual struggles- I asked if he had ever thought of going to church as I serve at a vietnamese church and would like to take him but he replied that his wife would not allow him to go and that he spends all day riding around on his bicycle going through trash bins. I told him that I hoped we could meet again and talk for longer. He seemed a little embarrassed/uncomfortable about meeting and talking with another vietnamese person.
After stopping by Susan's house and going onto the final location I was able to spend some time with Gary and talk to him about what some of his favourite scriptures were. It was a great day out being able to pray with DC before leaving him and striving to love like Christ."
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Here's another brief excerpt from Jenny Rowlands:
"I loved interacting with the homeless today--especially Elizabeth and the group of guys that live outside Venita's house. I don't know Elizabeth/Liz's background at all but today as I was talking with her she kept saying that she wanted to live life normally, wanted someone to love her and take care of her. It was so shocking to think that a 40 year old woman cannot take care of herself nor have the means to provide for her basic needs due to drug addictions and other events in her life. She told me that no one loves her, and her family doesn't even love her (which I don't know the history there at all). So as we talked I told her that even if she did what she considered to be the worst thing ever, God would still love her. She was really surprised by that and gave me some examples of what her life looked like and I said- that's why God's love is so amazing! He loves us while we are still stuck in our sin and he clearly came to save us. So she tells me--I want to have Jesus in my life!
Ah! She prayed the most sincere prayer and accepted Christ! So in the midst of me being overwhelmed with joy, she said she felt really good after she prayed and that she was now sober. Apparently before we prayed she wasn't sober, and afterwards she was. Praise God! Prayed for her again and she said she felt God's love in her heart. So, I am super excited to follow up with her in the future and wanted to let you know what happened in conversation with her today. She's so broken and I am wondering how God's freedom will be victorious over her addictions and other strongholds. For lack of a better description, it's like two worlds colliding."
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Our second stop took us to Susan's house. She's recovering and trying to get the house back in order. She's renovating the house and it's looking pretty good now. It's amazing how much support she's getting for being so faithful. I'm glad we are able to bless her in small ways. She's still having trouble paying rent, so I emailed some paper work to some people to see if they can help. She still needs help with trimmings and other things, but we'll see what we can do. We had a small praying session and ask the Lord to keep protecting her. It was good to see her husband out to meet us.
We finished at the Texas Car Wash and the hispanic church was still singing. We met up with a few that were in the back that didn't like singing and dropped some toothbrushes and toothpaste with them. Several of them wanted to pray so we prayed. I have to give praise for the Rowland girls for hanging with them and being vocal about their faith. While Ryan and Thai worked the front with Gary and some others several of us went to the back to speak with DJ and several more guys.
The needs are still there and sharing the gospel is paramount.
